From first to last he was misunderstood.  His ideas were made fun of, his efforts were treated with contempt, and even what he did was not believed, or was spoken of as of not much account.  A career that began in scorn ended in neglect.  He died unregarded, and for years no one gave him credit for what he had done, nor honor for what he had brought about.

Such a life would, I am sure, seem to all boys and girls, but a dreary prospect if they felt it was to be theirs or that of any one they loved.  And yet what man to-day is more highly honored than Christopher Columbus?  People forget all the trials and hardships and sorrows of his life, and think of him only as one of the great successes of the world—­the man who discovered America.

And out of his life of disaster and disappointment two things stand forth that all of us can honor and all of us should wish to copy.  These are his sublime persistence and his unfaltering faith.  Even as a boy, Columbus had an idea of what he wished to try and what he was bound to do.  He kept right at that idea, no matter what might happen to annoy him or set him back.

It was the faith and the persistence of Columbus that discovered America and opened the way for the millions who now call it their home.  It is because of these qualities that we honor him to-day; it is because this faith and persistence ended as they did in the discovery of a new world, that to-day his fame is immortal.

Other men were as brave, as skillful and as wise as he.  Following in his track they came sailing to the new lands; they explored its coasts, conquered its red inhabitants, and peopled its shores with the life that has made America today the home of millions of white men and millions of free men.  But Columbus showed the way.

CHAPTER XIV.  HOW THE STORY TURNS OUT.

Whenever you start to read a story that you hope will be interesting, you always wonder, do you not, how it is going to turn out?  Your favorite fairy tale or wonder story that began with “once upon a time,” ends, does it not, “so the prince married the beautiful princess, and they lived happy ever after?”

Now, how does this story that we have been reading together turn out?  You don’t think it ended happily, do you?  It was, in some respects, more marvelous than any fairy tale or wonder story; but, dear me! you say, why couldn’t Columbus have lived happily, after he had gone through so much, and done so much, and discovered America, and given us who came after him so splendid a land to live in?

Now, just here comes the real point of the story.  Wise men tell us that millions upon millions of busy little insects die to make the beautiful coral islands of the Southern seas.  Millions and millions of men and women have lived and labored, died and been forgotten by the world they helped to make the bright, and beautiful, and prosperous place to live in that it is to-day.